Willem Dafoe Biography

Willem Dafoe played mostly bad guys and weirdos until an Oscar-nominated role in Oliver Stone‘s Platoon (1986) made him a star.

Compelling and intense, Dafoe started in the movies in the 1980s after extensive work in experimental theater.

Instead of going the leading man route, Dafoe showed tremendous range in a variety of roles: he played Jesus in Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), a very gnarly bad guy in David Lynch‘s Wild at Heart (1990, starring Nicolas Cage) and a troubled son and brother in Affliction (1998, with Nick Nolte).

Dafoe won a second Oscar nomination for his role as a creepy, bloodsucking actor in Shadow of the Vampire (2000).

A versatile and hard-working actor, he’s a familiar face at the box office. His films include To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Body of Evidence (1993, with Madonna), The Boondock Saints (1999), The Clearing (2004, with Robert Redford), and, playing the Green Goblin, the Spider-Man movies directed by Sam Raimi (2002-07).

His other Oscar nominations have been for his supporting role in 2017’s The Florida Project, and his leading role as Vincent Van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate (2018).